The Mustache that Wouldn't Quit
by AliasMe
Summary: Heyes thinks he has lost the Kid he knows and loves. And he wants him back ...


**The Mustache that Wouldn't Quit**

by AliasMe

_(This story takes place between the end of "Smiler with a Gun" and the end of "The Posse that Wouldn't Quit" and contains spoilers for both)_

Shaving at dawn by a creek was how they began their day.

This place was quiet. Quiet and pretty, the air fresh but without a chill, the early chorus down to an occasional twitter. Crouched on the stones at the edge of the water, Hannibal Heyes swished his razor back and forth and knew he shouldn't even begin to think about steam rising from a basin and clean towels hanging over a rail. They only had a small triangle of cracked mirror between them, propped up in a bush. He squinted into it, rubbed a thumb across his chin, and then said in a hoarse morning voice, "I think you're in the clear."

"Hmm?" On the other side of the bush, wringing out his bandana, Kid Curry wasn't really listening.

Heyes retrieved the triangle, rose stiffly to his feet and wandered back to the little fire where their bedrolls and meagre supplies were spread out. "He hasn't changed his mind. You're in the clear."

Kid Curry frowned. He had been frowning for the last two days, un-nerved by Heyes constantly looking over his shoulder.

"I figured he might, once we left town, but he hasn't," Heyes went on, not deterred by the silence. While he busied himself shaking out the saddle-blankets Kid Curry tied a knot in his bandana. Heyes caught him rubbing his own chin, clearly displeased by the feel of a cold-water shave. He was staring out over the pale grey creek, his gaze fixed and far-away, staring but looking at nothing.

Mustache still in place, Heyes noted dismally. Forty-eight hours out of Matherville, and it was still there.

"What are you staring at, Heyes?" Curry asked without turning his head. He did not wait for an answer, but rolled his neck around in a circle before stumping across to help pack up. "It really isn't a big deal. Really."

"No? So why not get rid of it?"

"I like it," the Kid said, his voice hiked a little in self-defence. Then, "I can't be bothered to get rid of it." Then, finally, "I don't know why."

Heyes damped down his desire to be the boy in the front row of the school-room, hand to the ceiling, bouncing on his seat in wild eagerness to be chosen to give the right answer. Kid Curry had to be in a particular frame of mind to take Heyes spouting cod philosophy -- and he had been manifestly not in that frame of mind for some weeks.

"I think you should shave it off," was all Heyes said in the end, throwing one of the blankets at him across the embers of the fire.

"Maybe," was all the Kid replied. He caught the blanket in one hand and jammed his hat on his head with the other.

Heyes inwardly sighed. Looked like another day of riding in near-silence. When they were ready and mounted, he fell in behind his partner, wondering when he would be brave enough to cut to the chase and ask the question.

_How'd you feel about killing Dan Billson, Kid? How'd you really feel?_

They finished the day, and the one after, eating roasted rabbit in the dark.

The Kid lightened up enough to say "that wasn't a half bad shot, Heyes, you even left us something to eat," but most of the time he was hunched and speechless. He knew, of course, that Hannibal Heyes was reigning in his natural desire to discover the problem and come up with a solution, and he appreciated it. It wouldn't last, though. Kid Curry knew the boy in the front row of the school-room all too well.

The sign for Diablo Wells arrived at just the right time.

They were nearly ten days out of Matherville, without a single good idea between them and heading fast for a critical money situation. What's more, apart from a camp of travelling musicians, where they spent two nights just for the company, they hadn't seen hardly a soul in all that time and Heyes the gregarious was getting restless. Especially as the Kid wasn't giving anything. No songs, no ridiculous suggestions, no sudden introduction of ribald humor or obscure topics that would entertain them both for hours. It might be normal for him to get a little grouchy the longer a trail went on, but not this dogged, spiritless silence.

_It's eating you up, Kid. That goddamn mustache is plumb eating you up. Get rid of it for pity's sake ... for my sake. _

Heyes didn't say any of this, of course. When they both came to a halt in front of the sign and Kid Curry read it out loud and then raised his brows, Heyes nodded. "A steak and a few beers?" he said, jangling the coins in his vest pocket. "A bed and some poker?"

A streaky smile came to the Kid's face. "That'd be a start," he agreed.

"A bath," Heyes continued on, "A bath and a shave."

The gloved fingers came up out of nowhere, acknowledged the continued presence on the upper lip and then dropped away. "Four miles," Curry said. "We'd better get going or they'll lock the hotel."

There was sense in that, Heyes realised. And no sense in goading him about the moustache when they were this tired and this hungry.

They arrived in the dark and did their usual routine. Checked in at the hotel, stabled the horses, cast about to see if they knew the lawmen in this town (they didn't), then (and only then) ordered hot water by the jugful. Soaped, changed and shaved, they charmed their way to a steak (as the kitchen should have been closed) and then sauntered across the street to find bright lights, music, beer and entertainment.

Heyes felt pretty good. The Kid had perked up no end once he sank his limbs into hot water, the hotel manager was as friendly as he could be, and the atmosphere spilling out of the Bluebell Saloon seemed both safe and lively. He pushed at the batwing to let his partner in first, grimacing slightly at Curry's profile. Inside at the bar he wrapped his hand around his beer glass and looked sideways. Curry wiped foam off his moustache and gazed unseeingly over his shoulder towards the gaming tables. Heyes was struck anew by how much like a stranger the Kid looked to him. Like he'd been taken over by the neat, hazelnut-colored thing in the middle of his face. His expression seemed strange. Even his eyes.

"You're staring again," the Kid challenged eventually, aware without looking that Heyes was eyeballing him. "Hadn't you better mosey on over there and starting working some of your magic? We need to pay for the room."

"You've been watching 'em, Kid. How's it looking?"

"They seem kind of stuck in their ways. Think they need a bit of new blood."

"You going to join me?"

Curry hesitated. "Well," he said, "Just so long as you promise me you won't get yourself into trouble, I think I'm going to go to bed."

Heyes did an unobtrusive sweep of the whole place. "I don't see any trouble," he said. "You see any trouble?"

Curry shook his head. "Looks peaceable enough." He patted Heyes on the back of the shoulder, dredging up that streaky smile again that didn't quite look right. He pinched some fingerfuls of muscle. It was a familiar contact that had been missing lately. "Course," he said, "the worst kind of trouble you generally don't see coming."

"I'll bear that in mind. Sleep well."

A raised finger of acknowledgement. The walk out of the Bluebell looked tired to Heyes. Tireder than it should have done. He drained his glass and turned to lean his back on the bar for a minute or two before deciding where to play. A table-ful of welcoming smiles met him when he chose, and he could already feel that tickling sensation in his gut that usually meant his luck was on the rise.

Kid Curry mooched back to the Hotel. He undressed and went to bed without even cleaning his gun, pausing just for a moment before the looking-glass to meet his own eyes. _Not the same man. Still not the same man._ He turned down the lamp, lay flat on his back with one arm behind his head and stared upwards into the black void that hung over his head.

The Kid drank a lot of coffee in the morning, Heyes noticed. But he didn't eat so much, pushing his breakfast round the plate and glancing over every so often at the sound of Heyes' fork stabbing eggs.

"I reckon we should stay put here for a while," Heyes mooted. "We can afford to now," and he grinned, pleased with himself.

The grin was infectious enough that Curry sat back and smiled at him. "Well tonight maybe you won't have to face all that trouble on your own," he said.

"That's just it, Kid. There was no trouble. It was the friendliest, easiest saloon you can imagine."

"I believe you."

"Even the Sheriff came and said hello."

"He did what?"

Heyes grinned wider at the memory. "Yes, Sheriff Morrison came on over to the Bluebell. He shook my hand, welcomed me to town and went away again. He didn't have that look on his face, Kid. He just made me as welcome as anyone else."

And it was true. The same atmosphere prevailed in much of Diablo Wells, from the general store to the saddler. The feeling of being as welcome as anyone else beguiled them, and Kid Curry's mood apparently began to improve. He remained a mite too subdued for Heyes' liking, but at least he started talking again, went back to regular gun-care and the like. They got drunk one night and laughed all the way back to the hotel over something that neither of them could remember in the morning. Food at the hotel was good too, as was the company of the manager's sister and her best friend.

Heyes thought the crisis was over when the best friend, Mary Chambers, who said she was looking for a husband but thought drifters probably didn't fit the bill, nudged the Kid over the dinner table and said, "Thaddeus, you know I really think you might be even more handsome, and a lot less gruff, if you parted company with your mustache. Don't you think so, Annette?"

Annette Taylor, who was very well-behaved (whenever her brother lurked nearby) was in total agreement. "It just doesn't seem to suit you, Thaddeus. I can't imagine what made you grow it."

He looked from one to another of them, and then at Heyes, who kindly helped him out because he seemed tongue-tied, something that held so many echoes of their childhood that Heyes was almost light-headed with a sudden, but fleeting, emotion.

"Thaddeus here has an impulsive nature, ladies. That thing on his face came for no reason, and will probably ... hopefully ... go for no reason."

"Well I'll give you a reason," Mary said, "in fact, I already have. I think it makes you gruff, Thaddeus. Let's see how you are without it."

"Yes, shave it off," Annette put in. "Go and do it right now."

"I could do," Curry conceded, touching the strange thing with the very tips of his fingers. He looked between them again. "Right now?"

Mary clapped her hands, drawing Mr Taylor, the hotel manager to peer in from the lobby. He didn't mind these nightly rendezvous, so long as nothing untoward happened. Heyes, who read character like an expert, was of the opinion that something untoward would most probably happen within the next few hours. Right now, he was fascinated to find out just how much positive feminine power was being exerted over Kid Curry. He waved a friendly hand at Mr Taylor who waved in return and then retreated to his register.

"Go on and do it, Thaddeus," Mary pushed on, leaning a pretty arm across and laying a hand lightly on his forearm. "And we'll meet you down here for a nightcap."

Heyes kept his face as neutral as he could manage, not wanting to spark any little fires of resistance at this juncture.

_You're going to get your something untoward tonight, if I'm not much mistaken, and if you just do as the lady says, Kid. And that would help me out in more ways than you know. _

Curry got to his feet, modest as if about to perform something spectacular. "Well I'll see you shortly," he said and picked up his hat from a cabinet behind them, striding out of the dining-room towards the stairs.

"You have no idea," said Heyes, "how hard I have been trying to get him to do that."

"Well, Joshua, you clearly haven't been giving him the right incentive," Mary Chambers told him. She was bold and attractive, chestnut-haired, talkative and knowing. Not in any way, shape or form Kid Curry's usual type, which even more convinced Heyes that the goddamned mustache was having an adverse effect on his character. She had homed in on him the moment Annette Taylor introduced them and Curry's response had been more than friendly, and at times a tad less than gentlemanly, which seemed to suit Mary Chambers just fine.

Ten minutes passed in which they sat at their table and talked of employment possibilities in and around Diablo Wells. Then Mr Taylor came to join them and open up the bottle of brandy. Soon a half hour had passed and the balloon glass in front of Heyes was empty.

"Not knowing about these things, Joshua," Mary said gently, "perhaps you could enlighten us as to exactly how long it would take a man to shave off his mustache?"

After a slightly hanging silence Heyes pushed his chair back slowly. "I think," he said, "that I'll just go up and see what's keeping him. Perhaps he's fallen asleep."

"Standing up?"

Heyes excused himself and stomped up the stairs. He was not sure what he expected to find. In fact, it occurred to him that maybe the Kid might have skipped off and gone to the saloon or for a walk round town, so he was relieved to find him in the room, lying on his bed with one hand behind his head. He was fully dressed, his boots crossed at the ankles, and the mustache was still firmly in place.

Shutting the door, Heyes wandered across the room and stood over him. "You staying up here?"

"Reckon so."

"There's a lady waiting for you, Kid. At least you could come down and say the game's over."

"What game?"

"I dunno. Whatever game Miss Chambers started off down there. I think she's expecting you back, for that ... nightcap. I'm not sure the facial adornment is really the issue." He looked at him closely, and then glanced over the room. On the washstand was a basin of water. A towel and Curry's razor were placed next to them. "Couldn't do it, huh?"

The Kid shook his head, and Heyes scratched his. He had the feeling inside that he wanted to explode, but something about the weary defeat on Kid Curry's face kept it in check for the time being.

"Go down and tell her I've fallen asleep," the Kid said hopefully.

"Standing up?" asked Heyes.

"Well alright, go down and tell her I cut my throat by accident."

"And the nightcap?"

"You can have mine."

"That's not what I meant."

Kid Curry rubbed his mustache defensively. "I know that's not what you meant."

Heyes put up his hands in submission. "Alright, alright, have it your way. I'll go and do your dirty work. Wish you could explain to me why you didn't do it, though."

The Kid just looked at him, his blue eyes shot through with something that pricked at Heyes' heart. He determined that he would go and sort out this situation, and then take the bull by the horns -- get Kid Curry to tell him just what the hell was going on here. But, by the time he had been down, all smiles, drunk the second glass of brandy, amused them with a description of Mr Jones standing before the mirror snoring deeply, and come back up, Curry was under the sheets, the lamp was down and he was curled away from the door, face to the wall.

Mary Chambers took the non-appearance of her temporary beau with little more than a flouncy shrug.

Thaddeus Jones was an extremely pleasant diversion from her daily round of at-homes, looking after her elderly father and keeping up with the social whirl that was, occasionally, Diablo Wells. Beyond that, given that he was an itinerant, not looking to settle down, and had a strangely dangerous edge about him that he shared with his fascinating partner, well ... she expected little. The soirees with Mr Smith and Annette were turning September into the most interesting month of this year and she did slightly regret that he hadn't taken up her challenge. Who knew where it might have led. But, all in all, there was nothing to get too annoyed about. When she saw him again, coming out of a gunsmith's on East Street, he tipped his hat at her. The mustache was still there, she noted, as well as that lazy grace. She felt a wave of curiosity about him that had not struck her before.

Joshua Smith, meanwhile, had been thinking. He figured he could probably go on doing well enough at the poker table to keep them here for a while longer, although eventually he knew one of the good people of Diablo Wells would take offence at something. Some guy had already been giving him long looks last night as he sat there raking in his chips. That, in turn, would almost certainly lead to trouble, and it scared Heyes to wonder what the Kid might do while he was so far from being himself. He couldn't get the thought out of mind that the mustache had been present when Kid Curry killed a man, and it was still there. Still, stubbornly there.

So he decided they should leave, and braced himself for wild protests.

"Alright then," Kid Curry said, when his partner informed him of his reasoning. "Seems fair. We need to find some work. Didn't Annette say she thought there might be something in the next town?"

"So you don't mind?"

"Heyes, your luck will run out sooner or later. You've won more than enough off these people already. You're right -- somebody's going to find a reason to dislike you. And I'm too tired to shoot anyone else."

_Anyone else? Too tired? What about when you're not too tired?_

Heyes made them pack up quickly, disturbed by the tone of voice. When they had supplied themselves from the general store, indulged in separate leavetakings of Annette Taylor and Mary Chambers, and settled their bill, there was about ten dollars tucked into the back of Heyes' pants. They left Diablo Wells in the late afternoon, and by nightfall they had a fire going and were sitting up under the stars once more in a neat little clearing that overlooked the plain.

Kid Curry leant with his back against a rock, one knee up, one leg stretched before him. He had taken his gun out and looked at it and then tucked it back into the belt. Now he just gazed into the flames. Heyes, cross-legged at the other side, just gazed at the mustache. His pulse was beating rapidly inside his temple and his palms felt sweaty. Curry glanced at him dubiously once or twice.

"OK," Heyes said finally in a strangulated voice. "The score's settled isn't it?"

"What?"

"I said the score's settled, isn't it? You kept the damn thing to remind you ... and you said you'd keep it 'til the score was settled. And it is, isn't it?"

"I think you need to calm down, Heyes. You sound a little over-excited."

"Goddamn right I'm over-excited!" Heyes barked out, rocking in place.

"Well stop it, will you. You look like an angry little elf sitting there like that."

"You haven't answered my question! Is the score settled?"

Kid Curry's chin jutted out. "It might be," he said. "And on the other hand, it might not be."

"But what else can you do, Kid? What else can settle it for you? The man who killed Seth and robbed us blind is gone. You don't need that stupid, useless mustache anymore, because you ... " He trailed off, alarmed by the sharp way the Kid unholstered his gun once more, clicking open the chamber.

"Because I killed him," Curry said. "Coulda shot him in the arm or the leg, and then fronted him up for the money. But I didn't. I shot him in the chest."

The anger and frustration drained out of Heyes in a rush, leaving him with a pain in his midriff. Hadn't he spent most of his life trying to prevent this happening? Hadn't they both always known, right from the time when the boy Jed would spend day after day after day just shooting up tins in the backyard, through every single instant when that pretty, customized six-gun would appear in his hand without the eye seeing the move, that one day he'd pay the price somehow?

"You didn't seek him out, Kid. Dan Billson challenged you."

"I set him up for it, Heyes. And the moment he went down, I knew he was dead ... and I waited to feel better about Seth and the money and all. But I never did." He stared at the shiny metal in his hand. "Still don't." He looked across at the bright firelight reflecting in the dark eyes and made a helpless gesture.

"OK, so it's nothing to do with settling the score anymore, is it?" Heyes said. "Perhaps you like feeling guilty."

"Perhaps," Curry growled, "I might just have to punch you in the teeth to shut you up."

"Well you go right ahead."

The fire crackled between them.

Heyes truly hated to go to sleep with this anger souring the air. He didn't have much in his life he could rely on. His brains were one thing, but brains didn't always ground you. Sometimes they complicated things. What Heyes really needed was to know that the boy Jed was not far away, and happy to be there.

Kid Curry pushed his head into the bunched up blanket that served as a pillow out here. It was a warm night, but there was a chill at the edge of his bones. He felt unfamiliar in his own skin, weary and wide awake at the same time. It was rare that they fell to sleep out in the wild without some disguised word of comfort for one another.

He woke suddenly, some restless hours later, to Heyes' hand on his shoulder, and his head came up off the blankets and remained poised for a second. Then he reached for his gun. It was barely light.

"Look at this," Heyes said to him, moving off to the edge of the clearing. Curry crawled to his feet and followed. Heyes was on his knees on a small outcrop, staring out into the lightening sky, and his hand came up and pointed downwards. Moving slowly in the distance, a small dust-cloud. They both stared at it. Kid Curry did not bother to wonder why something so far away had managed to wake his partner. He knew anyway that Hannibal Heyes possessed a pretty reliable sixth sense. It went a little awol sometimes, because Heyes had a feisty imagination as well, but mostly it was reliable.

"They're coming this way," the Kid said un-necessarily, as if he could not quite credit it.

"Yup. And that's more than a couple of horses. That's ... hell, that's practically a regiment."

"Well, what else could it be?"

"What do you mean, what else could it be? They're pretty much following our trail exactly, and they're sure keen to get to us."

"You're sure they're following us?"

"Aren't you?"

Their eyes met.

"Yeah."

"Let's move," Heyes said. He was wondering if it had been that guy in the saloon, looking at him hard the other night.

"Damnit," the Kid said. He was wondering about Mary Chambers.

And for the next three days there was no time to think of anything except somehow putting some distance between themselves and the dust-cloud. It was not just the size of the pursuing horde that gripped their throats, there was something else about it. Heyes' sixth sense told him that it might just be the harbinger of some crazy, desperate bid to stay free -- some unwanted gun battle that they had no hope of emerging from, or else the beginning of their lives behind bars, separated. After twenty-four hours, they both knew it was different to normal. This posse was large, professional, and it was prepared to travel day and night. Neither of them even suggested the notion that they should split up, and Heyes knew that it was because they both smelt the real possibility of this being the end. If it was, they wanted to go down together.

Belle Jordan did not believe the poisoned water story for an instant.

When she stopped the cart for the two trail-stained men who had staggered down on to the road from out of some bushes, she had no doubt that there was some trouble in the air. She did not know about the thirteen-man posse, of course, but she recognized something out of the ordinary when she saw it. And these two were something out of the ordinary.

At first, not sure about the danger they posed, she had felt a little fearful, but then the earnest way the brown-eyed one lied about their horses, and the hopeful smile of the mustachioed one told her she was not dealing with desperadoes. She was forward-thinking enough to see them as possible help on the ranch, and good-hearted enough to want to help them in their current predicament. They seemed inordinately delighted to bump along in the cart and she was convinced that they were glad to be leaving behind something that scared them. Easygoing and charming during the day -- not to mention hard-working and respectful -- at night when Joshua sang there was a plaintive edge to his voice. And Thaddeus sat and stared into space. Lost boys, Belle thought them, and that opened her heart. She had three brothers in Denver, and she had always wanted sons.

"I swear," said Heyes after a week or so, cosily bunked up in the barn after another day of fence-work and apple-pie, "being around them is having a good influence on you. Don't you think?"

Kid Curry tutted at him. "I know you're about to start on me, Heyes, but ... lucky for you being around them makes me feel so good that I'm going to let you."

"You know I caught you smiling ... oh, at least three or four times today."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, and you ate so much dinner I thought you might bust out of your pants."

Curry laughed at this notion. "It was a damn fine dinner," he said.

"It certainly was. And it gave me another reason why you should lose the mustache."

A short silence. Then, "Which was?"

"Well, it got full of pieces of stew, Kid. That ain't very appealing to anyone. You're starting to remind me of a goat."

Curry laughed again, a really amused laugh that came out of the dark at Heyes like a shaft of light. "And you're starting to remind me of my mother."

"Well, so go on then. Are you gonna get rid of it?"

The question hung in the air like a little bubble, floating, floating, until Curry popped it. "Nope." He heard Heyes' bunk creak.

"Goats are stubborn, aren't they?"

"No, Heyes. Mules are stubborn."

"Uh-huh. Well, what is it now, Kid? Are you afraid you'll lose your powers if you shave it off?"

"What?"

"Well, you remember Samson ... when Delilah crept up on him in the night, and cut off his hair ..."

"Heyes, I'm warning you ... if you so much as put one foot out of bed ..."

Hannibal Heyes snorted with mirth and heard the Kid echoing it from the opposite bunk. He let it drop there. Laughing themselves to sleep was just too important and he wouldn't jeopardize the mood. Part of the reason they had survived together this long was that Heyes had the sensitivity to go with his brain. And the boy Jed loved him for it.

Five days out of Buckton they came to Riley's Crossing and decided to stay there just for the night.

You couldn't hardly call it a town. One short street with a water trough right in the middle. One store, one livery and no bank. One saloon that ought to have been ashamed to call itself that, and no hotel.

But when you were tired, and still tingling from the adrenalin of the posse and leaving the Jordans, it seemed like the right thing to do.

"Surely, fellers," said the barkeep at the saloon, "we got a couple of rooms upstairs. You're welcome to one, s'long as you keep the girls out."

"Girls?" said Heyes looking around the room, deserted except for three men playing cards at a table too small for them.

"They come in later on," said the barkeep. "But they gotta stay downstairs."

They considered just eating and then sleeping, but when they heard the music coming up from down below and Heyes' poker hands were feeling twitchy, the fatigue just seemed to fade away.

"The girls come in later on," Kid Curry said.

"Well OK, Kid, but they probably won't like your mustache."

It was the first time Heyes had mentioned it since he had speculated out loud that perhaps it might do as his disguise when he came up with the plan to spring Belle Jordan.

"Ya think it could be cut off all in one piece somehow?" he had said at the time, half amused and half disappointed at the protective way Curry had placed his hand over it.

"No," Curry had said. "No, no, no and no."

The one that Heyes had eventually fished out of his saddlebags had been limp and moth-eaten, but it served its purpose, falling to bits as soon as he peeled it off in the jail. Riding high on a wave of relief and satisfaction at having seen the Jordans right and extracted themselves from behind bars, the Kid had agreed to think about getting rid of the real one.

He hadn't though. It was still there and Heyes couldn't for the life of him get used to it. It was still too closely associated with two dead men and a deeply unwelcome notch on Kid Curry's gun.

They found the tiny saloon downstairs was getting noisy and wild even though only half full. It was one of those kinds of places that they actually tried hard to stay away from, but as there was no alternative in Riley's Crossing, and, truth be told, their curiosity was piqued, they wandered in anyway.

There was a small group of young cowboys gathered near one end of the bar who had not been there when they had first arrived. At the other end was a single man contemplating half a bottle of whisky and seeming to be oblivious of his surroundings. All three of the older men playing poker in one corner were now quietly drunk. The barkeep seemed a little tipsy too, and any time anyone ordered something to drink he repeated it in a loud whoop and banged glasses and bottles down on the scratched and dented bar. There was an old man sitting on his own in another corner smoking a pipe and wreathed in swirls of grey. He was bewhiskered, a lot like Seth had been when he died. Kid Curry saw the resemblance immediately, even more so when the old man raised his glass to them.

"A beer might make that stew sit a little easier," Heyes murmured, patting his stomach.

"You smell any trouble?" the Kid whispered, touching his hat with what he hoped was a friendly, but not too friendly, smile at the cowboys.

"No I just smell beer," said Heyes, lifting a foot and looking down. The floor by the bar was awash. He strode forward confidently, slipping into a spot just big enough for two between the cowboys and the guy with the whisky. "Two beers," he said politely to the barkeep as the Kid slid in beside him.

"Two beers!" yelled the barkeep, and the cowboys took up the chorus.

"Two beers!" rang out for a few seconds and then the crashing sound of the barkeep striking a couple of beer glasses on the bar. He grinned at his only guests, not even watching what he was doing as he filled the glasses. Then he slopped them along the bar.

Heyes picked his glass up gingerly. "If this was my idea," he said quietly, "then I apologize."

"I'd like to keep that whole thought," Curry told him sweetly, "And bottle it."

There really was not much to do in the saloon in Riley's Crossing except drink. Heyes did try to join the trio of poker players but, however tempting it was to keep winning money off men whose senses were blunted by several hours' whisky, he knew better. Addled players sometimes turned nasty, and Kid Curry had decided not to join him.

They began their own entertainment at the bar with several of the visiting women who arrived some time after ten o'clock, even though the old man in the corner, who genially introduced himself as the Mayor, suggested it might be a bad idea.

"He's not really the Mayor, you know," one of the girls said, as if imparting a state secret.

"Should be, though," another added. "If he was, bet he wouldn't keep trying to get rid of us."

"I have plenty of good ideas," the Mayor stated. "It's just no-one'll pay me to see 'em through." His chuckle sent a lead weight into Kid Curry's stomach and his arm tingled when the old man placed his hand on it. "This is a funny sort of a place, don't you think?"

"It has its good points," Heyes said, seeing that the Kid was once again struck dumb.

When the cowboys finally began to get rowdy and the girls gravitated away, the Mayor said, "My advice to you two nice-seeming fellers, is to cut and run."

"From the saloon, or from the whole town?" Heyes asked and the old man smiled.

"Sleep with your door locked and don't try the breakfast," he twinkled.

Upstairs, mindful of the shadow that had descended on his partner, Heyes felt he had to remark, "He _is_ very like him, isn't he?"

Kid Curry unbuckled his gunbelt and plopped it in the center of the bed. The mattress sagged. "I think we may have to take it in shifts," was what he said, turning just in time to see Heyes shaking his head. "Sleeping, I mean. What are you shaking for, Heyes?"

"I said, he's very like him, isn't he?"

He managed to hold the gaze then, seeing just a faint imprint of pain.

"If Seth had made it," Kid Curry said, his voice tight and low as if the words were being dragged out of him, "I wouldn't have killed Dan Billson for the money, Heyes."

"I know that, Kid. You think I don't know that? Question is, when are you going to let it go? Every town has got a Seth."

Curry rubbed a hand over his eyes and down his face, his thumb and third finger pausing on either end of his mustache. "You take first shift, Heyes. I'm not sleepy."

Several comments came to Heyes' lips, but he kept them there. This poky little room in a poky little town did not seem the best place to argue. His head was still full of slightly beery thoughts, however.

_That thing is evil! It killed the conversation stone dead, Kid, and I'm telling you, you gotta get rid of it or I might not be able to stand it any longer ..._

Heyes got to sleep eventually. The mattress held him like a lumpy hammock and his feet touched the end of the bed. He was almost looking forward to getting up and taking the chair for a few hours. He decided that next time he turned over and the bedsprings woke him up he would do just that, let the Kid try tousling with the damn things. He wished they'd elected to toss a coin, because most likely he would be fast asleep over there in the chair right now.

The next time the bedsprings woke him up, it was morning.

Heyes rolled sideways, stiffly, out of the sheets and got to standing. The room was empty, a blanket discarded by the side of the chair.

"Oh shit," Heyes said out loud, startled, suddenly fearful. He felt sick and dizzy. His head swivelled and he saw the Kid's gunbelt still lying where he had moodily pushed it aside as he climbed into bed. This was so surprisingly unwelcome a sight that it galvanised him into action at once. Within minutes he was dressed, fiercely rubbing the back of his fist across his scratchy chin and leaving his hair stranded in several different directions when he ran a hand through it. He buckled on his own belt and swept up his hat. By the time he was going down the stairs a myriad of foreboding scenarios were cascading through his brain. How many weeks now had he not liked the look in Kid Curry's eye? How long now had he been feeling like something bad was going to happen? Sometimes shooting a man dead could cause you to lose your mind. Sometimes, being reminded of something terrible could cause you to ...

Heyes crossed the deserted saloon in long strides, not even sure where he was going. Morning sunshine hit him in the face as he came outside, a warm, lemony sunshine that spilled up the street and lent everything a halo . Heyes turned his head left and saw no-one. He turned his head right and saw no-one. As he came down the steps into the dust an awful loneliness flooded him. He did not know where to go.

When his feet began to move he became aware of a figure coming towards him from the direction of the wooden seat by the water trough. Another figure, whiskered and slightly bent was sitting on the seat, turning his face up gladly into the sun. Heyes was aware that his heart was thudding painfully in his chest as he watched the Kid approach through a cloud of dust motes.

"What's the matter?" he heard him say, his voice flooded with concern.

"What?" said Heyes.

Kid Curry moved up close. His eyes were warm and blue. Heyes felt a three-fingered grip under his elbow as if the Kid thought he had to try and hold him up. "Heyes, are you alright?"

"I didn't know where you were," Heyes said, "I thought ... " His eyes strayed down from the ends of light curly hair poking out under the rim of Kid Curry's tan hat, down past his eyes to his very faintly upturned lips.

"I just came down to talk to the Mayor," he said. "Couldn't sleep, and saw him out the window."

"Without your gun?" Heyes said disbelievingly.

"I didn't come down to shoot him, Heyes," Kid Curry said mildly. "Just to get better acquainted."

"You ..." Heyes said, trying to get his voice down a pitch or two as he stared at the clean-shaven face. "You ..."

"Yeah," Curry said wryly. "I'm not wearing it anymore." He seemed relaxed, full of calm.

"Why's that?" Heyes asked in a whisper.

A little glance behind him at the Mayor still sitting in the sun. "Decided I don't need it."

Heyes' head swam. He wasn't sure for a second if the Kid was talking about his mustache, or his gun.

He looked young, the boy Jed, without the mustache. Too young to have killed a man. Too young to be on the run from the law. But then Heyes thought of the pretty, customized six-gun hanging in the belt upstairs and realised that at the same time Kid Curry felt as old as the world.

"The Mayor did it for me," the Kid went on. "Turns out he used to be a barber." He made the age-old gesture with his hand, smoothing down the skin from beneath his nose with his palm. "Did a fine job, too."

"Good decision, Kid," Heyes said, feeling some of the sunshine now creeping into his bones.

"I know it."

They stared at one another a moment longer. Then Kid Curry got Heyes lightly by one shoulder and wheeled him round.

"Could you use some breakfast?" he asked.

"Are you sure we should risk it?"

He felt the Kid's grip tighten, the arm relaxing around him. "Oh it's alright, Heyes, we won't be in any danger. 'M gonna go up and get my gun first."

Heyes stood at the bottom of the stairs as Kid Curry went up them two at a time. He knew that he'd fully recognize the man who would reappear in a minute or two with his pretty six-gun bumping gently against his hip.

One day, Heyes thought, wistful for both their lives, maybe he could get rid of that, too.

THE END


End file.
